This is an anti-drug video from CareNZ. Why do you think CareNZ chose the rhetorical
strategies they did to portray the use of drugs? Do you think they are
successful in doing so? Are such graphic images necessary to get their point
across? How does the club setting, dark lighting, and eerie music effect the
audience’s experience?
I am responding to this post using blog prompt 7. The first thought that came in my mind after finish watching this video was "and I thought my post was unpleasant to watch." If this video does not scare the viewers away from drugs, then I do not see what can. In the video, a man takes a piece of his brain out, shatter that with a razor blade, licks the blood on the blade, wraps up a dollar bill, and sniff the shattered brain powdered pieces as though they were drugs. The freakiest part of the video is that the man does the whole process without any hesitations, as thought he was either being hypnotized by the addiction, or he has done this so many times that it becomes ordinary for him. The use of continuous shock values definitely impacted tremendously on the viewers. Most of the comments in the video are about how disgusting the video is, how effective the commercial is, and how they definitely will not do drugs because they do not want to get as messed up as the man in the video. Through the video, including the end message of, “every day more and more people are lining up to destroy themselves”, the creator of this video has definitely delivered his most powerful message: This video is real. Might not literally, but this is what most addicted people would think and would do. That is the true danger of drugs.
ReplyDeletePrompt 7
ReplyDeleteThis anti-drug commercial uses shock value to really hammer home the idea that drugs are bad for you. It is clear that the author's intent is to scare people into thinking that drugs are really bad for you. The man in the video uses his own brain as a drug rather than a normal drug. This definitely freaks the viewer out and discourages them from using drugs. In reality, you may not be using your own brain as a drug, but you are destroying it by using drugs. That is the point which the author tries to get across, and does so by using shock value.
Prompt 1:
ReplyDeleteJust as Thinh and Jake have said, this anti-drug video definitely uses shock value to get its point across. The dark atmosphere of the club, the scratchy, eerie background music, and the gore of the man pulling out a chunk of his own brain helps enforce this shock value. The commercial almost has a kind of horror movie feel to it. It is possible that the creators of this commercial wanted to connect drugs to horror-style films. The man ripping open his skull, yanking out and snorting his own brain, licking his blood-covered fingers,and having dilated, hypnotized-looking pupils reminds me of a gory zombie movie. The bright white porcelain toilet surrounded by dark walls draws your attention to the man and even more to the bloody chunk of brain on the toilet. Some horror films include scenes with white walls or white hospitals gowns that are covered in blood. The white really makes the blood and gore stand out. These horror film similarities might be a part of what makes the shock value so strong in this video.
In Class Assignment
ReplyDeleteThe first reaction that we had after watching the video was one of unpleasantness. We thought that the author of this video might have done this on purpose in order to relate the feelings that we get while watching the video to the effects of doing drugs. The long term effects of drugs, especially those it has on the brain are unpleasant, similar to those that the viewer may get upon watching the video. It is one thing to say that doing drugs destroys your brain, however, it is another thing to show someone literally destroying their own brain. The author purposely made it hard to watch in order to relate the experience of viewing the video, to the long term effects of doing drugs.
Group post:
ReplyDeleteThe director in the video focused the camera on the "drugs" the man was taking rather than the man himself. He does this by never showing eye contact with the man until the last shot with his pupils dialating. He is always at side view or looking down, this can show that the "drugs" have utter control over the man's intentions. Prior the to bathroom, the man in the club is very distraught, he seems out of place with everyone in the club and is looking around aimlessly. This is an attempt to show how the craving for drugs controls his actions and his thought process. Rather than dancing in the club he looks for the bathroom to take drugs. When he opens his skull the viewer is above the man, showing his submissiveness to the drug. While crushing his brain, he is at a side facing the drugs at all times showing focus not on him but on his actions. The director does this to convey submission of the man to the drug. The focal point is that the director uses camera angles to show the pure submission of the man to the drug. He is not seen as an individual person but a product of drugs.